I was preparing for a big meeting at work the other day. I went through my to-do list an hour before the meeting. Charge laptop. Check. Load presentation. Check. Have back up data ready. Check. Book meeting room. Check. I took a deep breath. I told myself I’d done everything I could, and that nothing would go wrong. It is at a moment like that, that my dear friend Murphy usually chooses to make his presence felt. That day however, he delayed his entry by a whole hour.
At the chosen hour, I loaded the presentation and shared my screen with my audience. Ten minutes into my presentation, someone asked me to open a browser and show them how my suggestion would play itself out in the real world. On the home page, occupying more than a quarter of the real-estate, were three scantily clad women, dressed in the latest inner wear. I heard a few gasps, a few “ahems”, a few chuckles, and definitely felt everyone’s eyes popping out of their sockets. “Those are some really pretty models. If your suggestion can transform some of our laptop models to look so pretty, I’m sold on your idea”, someone said cheekily. I immediately realized which item from the list I’d forgotten to tick off – “Clear cookies”. Uncheck.
How I came about browsing that particular lingerie site makes for an interesting story. My husband and I were discussing holiday plans for a long weekend in September. After much debate, we zeroed in on Goa. We browsed a few sites and finally made a reservation at a nice resort. The next time I logged into Facebook, I saw advertisements for sunshades, flip flops, and you guessed it right, for swim wear. Curious to see if I could find something interesting, I clicked on one of the links. It was only on the day of the big presentation that I realized why our mothers tell us never to click strange links.
The web spider, often disguised as a friendly grandma, has proven to be a black widow on many an occasion. I’d once written a scathing review on Bhajrangi Bhaijaan on some site. Within a few hours, I got an email from one of the online petition signing sites asking to sign a petition against the killing of blackbucks! I initially thought it was a coincidence, but was forced to admire the complexity of algorithms run by some of these crawlers when I saw ads for selfie sticks all over my mailbox the very next day.
I repeatedly kept seeing ads for ipads and iphones every time I logged on to the internet. I pride myself on uncovering random connections where there are none, but this one had me flummoxed for quite a while. I realized how that came about a week later, when I saw my daughter typing away furiously on my laptop. She was so pleased with the first five letter word that she had learnt to spell, that she kept typing it out on my browser window a few million times. And what was the word? Why, apple of course!
I have a feeling I’m going to be seeing a lot of ads of kids modeling about in swimwear soon after I post this piece. I’m sure it’ll be followed by a request to sign a petition against using children as models for clothes.
tameshru 